All of my subscribers know that I don’t believe in secrets or magic fixes when it comes to fitness. However, there is a factor that exists that is so blatantly in front of our faces that it could be overlooked, and may come as a shock to why you are not losing weight. And that huge factor is your mindset. This video is gonna go deep, and if you watch this entire video i think it’ll really help shed some light on why some people always stay fit and others tend to struggle a little more. Also I’m going to give you a very powerful exercise that you can do to really help your mindset not only in fitness, but all areas of life.
I’m going to start by identifying your way of thinking about fitness as falling into one of two categories and then i’ll show what these general categories specifically lead to. These two categories that we’re going to start with are nature vs nurture. This is one of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology. Let’s define these two in a simple way to easily understand what each of them mean. Believing in the nature perspective aligns you with the belief that a person’s development is predisposed to his/her DNA. Adopting the nurture perspective aligns you with the belief that a persons development is influenced by life experiences and his/her environment. Even though you could be somewhere in the middle in between these two mindsets, usually people tend to lean more towards one of these two ways of thinking.
Since nature vs nurture has been a highly debated topic for generations, and his been debated by psychologists that are far more qualified than me my goal is not to debate which one is correct. It is to see which mindset is best for losing weight and body fat. Which one is going to help you and which one is going to hurt you. What are some of the things that come to mind under nature? Genetics, right, here genes are more in control than you are. On the nurture side of things it is believed that yes of course genes will influence certain traits, but your environment plays a much larger role.
When a persons view of the world is aligned with one of these perspectives their thoughts and actions are highly influenced especially in the area of fitness. People that really believe that everything is up to nature and genes will express statements like, “I’m not athletic,” “I have no coordination or balance” “Obesity runs in my family” and “Both my parents had high blood pressure so that’s why I have it.” As you can see with nature it takes a lot of control over your body and your health out of your hands. You don’t control it natural forces control it. With nature you believe that certain people won the genetic lottery while others did not. And if you feel like you are one of the people that did not win, by leaning heavily toward the nature perspective you’re going to also feel like there isn’t much that you can do about it.
When a persons view of the world is aligned with nurture and environment they will often express statements like, “I’m not very athletic now, but if I work on it I can become athletic” “I can develop my coordination and balance by putting my self into environments that make balance and coordination more difficult.” “My family is Obese, but I don’t have to be because I can join a gym and eat right” and “High blood pressure runs in my family, but I can take steps to reduce and eliminate my risk.” Having the nurture mindset clearly puts a lot of control back in your hands regardless of the cards that nature has dealt you.
Again the point is not to decide which one is correct and which one is wrong, it is to decide which perspective is helpful when applied to losing weight. Even if genes do influence your weight, how is it going to help you lose weight by holding in your mind that your genetically predisposed to obesity. It’s not, by holding on to such beliefs you take the power out of your hands. You weaken your ability to change things. If you truly believe that your destined to be obese because of poor genes, how will you possibly give a 100% of your effort to working out and dieting. When believing fully in the nature perspective you already believe that things are the way they are and there isn’t much you can do about it. You start the diet or exercise program and already believe it’s not going to work for you, so you don’t put in the level of effort necessary to actually make a change.
I can tell you from experience that this limiting belief is not true. Yes everyone is dealt a different hand, but no matter what hand you can improve it.
